Wednesday, October 15, 2008

Great American Road Trip - Day 6

We are now west of the Mississippi, and the radio stations all start with "K" instead of "W" now. I always wondered where that invisible line was... guess it isn't so invisible, big body of water and all. Speaking of big bodies of water, Lake Pontchartrain is HUGEMONGOUS!

We had a slow start to the morning, then enjoyed a pleasant morning drive toward New Orleans. After a bit of traffic, we hit the French Quarter at exactly the wrong time for the boys -- hungry and sleepy. You would think we would know this by now, but we like to torture ourselves. They did amazingly well... initially. On the recommendation of a friend, we ate muffulletas, cafe' au lait, and beignets. Squeaker was more interested in eating the pound and a half of powdered sugar atop the beignets -- with a straw, and Little Man, who apparently is not related to me, wanted nothing to do with it... he asked for something "less messy". Um, sorry kiddo, and now mommy gets two!

We walked around the streets and admired the architecture, the performers, the locals whooping at the performers (cheering them on) and the plaquards all along the upper end of Bourbon Street... oops, wrong street for those of an impressionable age. The signs out front of many 'stores' were quite graphic.

Anyway, after a difficult walk back to the car with two tired kids, we managed to head of of the big easy and right into some awful awful awful traffic in Baton Rouge. There was a horrible accident and traffic was backed up pretty much through the entire city on I-10. Needless to say, the lack of movement and white noise from driving curtailed our nappers.We stopped after naps, right around dinnertime, at a park to play, then strapped the boys into the car for dinner. Notice LM's sweaty head... those boys play HARD!

After calling about 50 hotels, I may be exaggerating slightly, it could have been 45, we had found a vacant room in Jennings, LA, which is where at least one of our wonderful little boys are snoring away to get ready for another busy day... in Texas.